Doctor Who_ Cats Cradle_ Witch Mark - Andrew Hunt [40]
'Recognize anything?' the Doctor asked her.
She had only ever been able to distinguished the Plough, Cassiopeia and Orion's Belt, and so these were her only reference points. But she searched for them in vain.
'It's all different,' she said.
'Exactly. We're a long way from anywhere. On the outskirts of a galaxy I should say. But which galaxy?' He shook his head.
'Professor, look,' Ace whispered urgently. She pointed to a fire smouldering at the foot of the towering wall. It burnt around the base of a tall stone post and on it were obviously human remains which twitched horribly.
'Oh dear,' said the Doctor, 'we seem to have stumbled upon a rather barbaric culture.'
'Get moving, you two,' Captain Rhys called and Ace realized that she and the Doctor had stopped moving at the sight of the burning. The Captain followed their gazes and saw what they were looking at.
'Spare no sympathy for those creatures. They were witches, they deserved to die.'
'Nobody deserves to die, Captain Rhys,’ the Doctor said, his dark eyes burning from within their hooded sockets. 'Try to ignore it, Ace.' He turned to her and saw that her eyes were firmly shut and her fists clenched: He reached out a hand to her but left it hovering just over her shoulder. 'Ace?'
Finally she looked at him. 'What sort of a scumbag could do that?' she asked. 'Burn somebody alive?'
The Doctor allowed his hand to settle on her and turned her round so that she fully faced him, so that she couldn't see the fire. 'It's a different world, Ace,' he told her gently. The sky, a simmering, angry red, was filled with dense clouds like clenched fists. From the tents, eyes bulged in their sockets from faces that were stretched and drawn from prolonged misery. The fortress of Dinorben, its walls pocked intermittently by blazing coals and night-filled craters, loomed over them oppressively. 'It isn't the same,'
he said.
‘They're human, aren't they?' Ace said angrily, her eyes ablaze. Whatever they were seeing now, it certainly wasn’t the ramshackle tents and churned mud of Dinorben. More likely it was the flat erupting in petrol-inspired flames and Manisha's accusing eyes clamped within the burgeoning scar tissue.
The two guards moved forward and gave Ace a push to start her moving again. She turned and glared, but her feet carried her onwards, towards the tunnel through the wall.
The entrance to the tunnel was twenty-five feet wide and twice as tall, but as the passage penetrated the wall it grew narrower and lower so that by the time the gate was reached it was only half that size.
On either side of the entrance, two staircases ran upwards to small doors set high in the wall.
Captain Rhys led them up the left-hand set of stairs. As he climbed, the Doctor looked down on the mud. He gave Ace a nudge and drew her attention to it. She gazed blankly down and then her open face registered acknowledgement.
‘Tyremarks. I think I can guess your perfectly simple explanation now.'
The Doctor merely nodded and carried on upwards. When they reached the door, Captain Rhys signalled for it to be opened by slamming the butt of his crossbow against its solid oak three times. It swung open rapidly and shut. as fast once they were through. A short passageway, lit by dimly flickering torches, led from the door into a vast hall which Ace felt sure must have spammed the width of the entire wall. Long trestle tables stained with the fat and wine of a thousand meals filled the hall and in a deep pit at one end a bonfire burnt fitfully, releasing a cloud of smoke particles. Over the years the fire had coloured the rock of the hall a greasy black.
Rhys strode into the centre of the hall and filled his lungs to shout, 'Caeryon! Caeryon! Where are you, you damned fool of a grass snake?'
A wooden panel high up in the wall over the pit clattered open and a small dark head poked out from behind it. Wisps of black hair fell untidily across the face and danced